Kathy Willis came to St. Thomas More for solace and to find peace. She lost her home and just about everything inside.

“There is no context,” Willis said. “I have to just put one foot in front of the other. I don’t know how to do it. I didn’t read the book on this. I’ve just got to keep going. I know that, because I have two kids. That’s the only reason I keep going.”

The one constant the congregation has is faith – faith that they will rebuild; faith that they will come back. The one thing the hope is that they will also have the patience.

“We lost blocks of homes,” FDNY Commissioner Sal Cassano said Tuesday. “The conditions that firefighters faced when they got here last night were really some of the worst conditions you could try to fight a fire in.”

Mayor Michael Bloomberg compared the damage to a war zone.

“The area was completely leveled; chimneys and foundations were left of many of these homes,” Bloomberg said Tuesday. “It’s very sad they lost their homes. The good news is there’s no fatalities, thank God.”

The home of U.S. Rep. Bob Turner (R-Queens) was among those destroyed. He said in a statement that, along with many other Breezy Point residents, he had lost his home. He expressed gratitude that he and his family were safe after the destructive storm.

The western Rockaway Peninsula has seen more than its share of scares and tragedies over the years.

On Nov. 12, 2001, just two months after the 9/11 attacks, American Airlines Flight 587 crashed in the center of Belle Harbor, neighboring Breezy Point. All 260 people on board were killed, along with five people on the ground.